Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A heterogeneous multi-core processor may refer to a multi-core processor having different processor cores. By splitting a workload between these different processor cores, the heterogeneous multi-core processor can provide increases in performance and/or improved energy efficiency over a homogeneous multi-core processor having duplicate generic processor cores.
Multiple processor cores within the heterogeneous multi-core processor may be utilized to execute a task. When a first processor core completes its operation and transfers execution of the task to a second processor core, the second processor core can undergo a context switch to transition from its current task to the transferred task. In order to complete the context switch, the first processor core may copy a process state of the transferred task to the second processor core. When the second processor core begins its operation, the second processor core may utilize the process state in order to resume execution of the transferred task. Copying the process state of a task from the first processor core to the second processor core can create significant overhead.